If Dukakis won in 1988

[darklordoftech]

Would he get a second term? Would the USSR and East Germany still fall? Would he intervene in Kuwait? Would crime, drugs, and policing policy be different today?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's quite possible, but not a certainty, that there would have been no Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and what followed.  Bush's Ambassador certainly made remarks that at the least left open the idea that the US would not get involved if Iraq invaded. Whether that actually affected what happened, we'll never know, but it is a definite possibility.

[SInNYC]

The fall of the USSR had nothing to do with the US (though our ego often makes many of us think otherwise), so that would have still happened. The USSR fell since a centrally planned economy may do OK at making steel and cement, but can never lead in making consumer products, and consumer products are whats needed once people's basic needs are met. 

In a way, its ironic that those who were vocally strongest against communism (as practiced in the USSR at least) were also those who attributed its fall to external factors rather than flaws in the system itself.  But thats politics.

Answering the original question, the economy would still have flagged in 1991, Perot would probably not have jumped in, and the demographics of that time let Ds win only if Rs really screwed things up ==> Dukakis loses in 92.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Regarding the SCOTUS, Dukakis would get no less then 4 Vacancies to fill (Brennan and Marshall like IRL, and White and Blackmun who were waiting for a Democratic President).

[President Biden Democrat]

No second term, probably not

[darklordoftech]

Regarding the SCOTUS, Dukakis would get no less then 4 Vacancies to fill (Brennan and Marshall like IRL, and White and Blackmun who were waiting for a Democratic President).

It would be glorious.

[brucejoel99]

The Cold War would go more or less the same.

Saddam might not have invaded Kuwait if the Dukakis administration hadn't given him the mixed signals that the Bush administration did (such as our ambassador telling Saddam that the U.S. had no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts, i.e. their border dispute w/ Kuwait). If Iraq did invade Kuwait, though, then they may have kept it. It's easy to forget now but there was an amount of opposition to the Gulf War, w/ many fearing another Vietnam. The war vote only passed the Senate 52-47, & many Democrats were opposed. Dukakis may very well have chosen the "sanctions- & diplomacy-only" route instead. Plus, Iraq could very well have not had the resources to invade Kuwait if sanctions had been in effect, serving to warn Saddam that the U.S. was adopting a containment policy against him, which would make an operation against Kuwait too risky; on the other hand, the physical capability to seize Kuwait & financial incentive would've still been there.

The recession probably still happens, & Dukakis' re-election chances would've depended on his response to it as well as on who the Republican nominee is.